Inside Politics: Unions losing faith in Labour

IT IS a novel that sits on the bookshelf of every truly redblooded British socialist.

Unite leader Len McCluskey is willing to take on the tories himself [TIM CLARKE]

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell tells a harrowing story of a group of manual workers struggling to earn a living in a south coastal town at the beginning of the 20th century and their exploitation at the hands of greedy capitalist bosses.

Tomorrow trade union leader Len McCluskey will introduce the premiere of a documentary made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the book's publication.

The screening kicks off the biennial conference of his powerful public-sector super union Unite and many activists at the gathering in Liverpool are feeling as angry about the state of the world as Tressell was.

Trade unions are in militant mood. Fringe meetings at the Unite conference will discuss "wealth, class and power" and "Cuba and Venezuela - another world is possible". General Secretary "Red" Len will rail against "Tory cuts" and the supposed lack of radicalism of the Labour party under Ed Miliband.

McCluskey's dream of building a new "workers' party" should Labour fail to win the next election is bound to be debated in the bars around the conference centre.

Unite is not alone in raising the flag of revolt. The National Union of Teachers last week announced another one-day national strike that will seek to shut classrooms across England and Wales next month in a continuing dispute with the Government over pay, pensions and working conditions.

The walk-out is being co-ordinated with a national strike on the same day by Unison in protest at a one per cent pay offer to local government workers.

Union leaders are predicting that the mass "day of action" on July 10 will be bigger than the 1926 general strike.

Such bellicose rhetoric and threats of industrial action that could bring infuriating inconvenience to millions of voters are surely a gift to the Tories in the countdown to next year's general election.

Unions could also be forced to give more notice of industrial action

Party insiders expect fresh curbs on trade union militancy to be one of the themes of the next Conservative election manifesto.

Ministers are pressing for legislation that will outlaw strikes that are not backed by 50 per cent of a union's total membership, not just a majority of those voting.

Unions could also be forced to give more notice of industrial action and firms could be allowed to bring in agency workers to cover for striking employees.

Such measures would severely curtail the ability of the NUT, Unison and other unions to organise mass walkouts and protests. And given the growing Tory confidence about taking on the labour movement it seems suicidal for unions to embark on a rash of high-profile strikes.

Union leaders appear to have forgotten the lesson of the Winter of Discontent just months before the 1979 general election that ushered in Margaret Thatcher's government and years of Tory dominance.

The number of working days lost to the British economy each year as a result of industrial action is a minuscule fraction of that reached in the 1970s.

Yet the latest round of industrial muscle-flexing will remind voters of the chaos that untamed unions can bring.

That cannot be good news for Ed Miliband who secured the Labour leadership thanks to the votes of the unions and Unite in particular.

McCluskey and his other union comrades have little concern about the impact their activities have on the Labour leader they installed.

The brutal truth is that they are rapidly losing hope of Mr Miliband getting into Downing Street. Their latest bout of militancy is a symptom of Labour's increasingly grim prospects under his leadership. Union leaders would rather gear themselves up for battle with a Tory government than rein in their belligerence in the hope of getting a more pliant Labour government elected.

In The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists the hero becomes increasingly disillusioned that his Marxist lectures fail to inspire the workers to rise up and fight for a socialist future.

A century on, an outburst of industrial action by the unions is a signal that Mr Miliband's political aspirations appear to be similarly doomed.